Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

164 Atlantic Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Atlantic neighborhood in North Quincy is bordered by the Neponset River to the North and Quincy Bay to the East. It was once part of Dorchester and with the Old North Precinct that had split off from Braintree. became part of the Town of Quincy in 1792. The Jockey Club of Boston set up the first mile track course in the state in 1812 in a section of Atlantic known as Billings Plains and less than one hundred years later the track was filled in with new homes. Like its neighbors, Montclair and Wollaston, most of the community of Atlantic was built in the first third of the 20th century. For nearly 200 years North Quincy was referred to as "The Farms" and it was such as the Newbury, Wilson, Billings' and Glover farms that were split up for residences by real estate developers David H. MacKay, Henry Hunt, Maurice E. Kilpatrick, John E. Poland, Henry J. Grass and Charles M. Conant. Henry Blackwell, and Walter Webb. The development process was greatly accelerated by the Old Colony Railroad which began operations in 1845, eventually establishing stations in Atlantic, Norfolk Downs (the southern section of Atlantic). and Wollaston as well as by the advent of Quincy's extensive street railway system.

One of the more impressive houses in the Atlantic neighborhood, 164 Atlantic Street is located on the former farm of Chase Parker. It appears to have been built in the early 1900's by Charles A. Hall, a clerk in Boston, and his wife Clara. The house remained in the Hall family for at least thirty-five years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy Historical Society.
H. Hobart Holly, ed. Quincy: 350 Years, 1974, p. 4.
William S. Pattee. A History-of Old Braintree and Quincy, 1878, p. 55.
John Ramsdell. "Historic North Quincy". ["Written about 1934"]. Typed manuscript at Quincy
Historical Society.
Daniel Munro Wilson, Three Hundred Years of Quincy 1625-1925. 1925, p. 280-281.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
There are two fine Shingle Style residences in the Atlantic area, 75 Russell Street and 164 Atlantic Street. They are similar in their compact massing under a gambrel roof and details, in particular the use of thick stucco columns to support their porches. Only the disposition of the windows in the shingled wall surfaces vary. The gambrel roof reappears on the American scene after a hiatus of almost a century when other types of roofs dominated the scene; ridge, hip, mansard, pyramidal, conical and others. After the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia arose a strong interest in American colonial architecture and one of the first manifestations of this antiquarian interest was the presence of the gambrel roof in residential architecture. This single residence at 164 Atlantic Street is set on a typical Quincy granite foundation and like 75 Russell is dominated and enveloped by a large two story gambrel roof which is pierced by varied sized dormers. The entrance portico is joined to the large porch under the gambrel gable by a balustrade; both have thick white stucco supports which contrasts pleasantly with weathered brown shingles of the walls. It is a fine example of the Shingle Style in Quincy and a contributing factor in the Atlantic Street streetscape.

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